Congratulations to pOETiq (aka pOETiqbEETz) for winning the Death Proof Beat Battle at the Element Lounge May 14th. 1028 Geary St. San Francisco!. Check for more music at myspace.com/poetiqx.
pOETiq has worked on a number of albums since he started working professionally in 96. He has worked on projects with En Vogue, Kiraly Linda Savina, Jaslyn Carter, and others. In Rap/Hip-Hop, he has done work for The Team, Bill Stack, Lady L.U.S.T., Kandi Cole, Carl B., Cal Cuta, Planet Asia, Rasco, Verbal Tactiks, and a host of local artists. In Gospel music, pOETiq has worked with Kathi Mills and Lawrence Matthews and even produced music for the Childrens Choir and The Youth & Youing Adult Choir at the Paradise Baptist Church where he is one of the choir directors.
And congrats to the runner-up, Chex Mex: myspace.com/chexmexofdor
For more info on upcoming Beat Battles (in the San Francisco/Cali area), check out http://www.myspace.com/phillipdrummond.
Since the site started we have been offering advice to hundreds of people via email, and a majority of those questions involve sampling and digging. We figured that a tutorial on digging and sampling would be of use to lots of heads out there. If you are just starting, it could give you enough information to get on your feet, and if you are already doing things it could show you another point of view, which is always valuable. Any non-technical statements in our articles are strictly our way of doing things. We are not here to claim the right way to do anything, in fact some of our processes could be better, but if it aint broke dont fix it… sometimes.
Well, to create a sample based beat, you need samples, and most of our sample-based beats come from vinyl so I will try to describe the different factors that go into selecting a record. Digging requires getting into crates and getting a little dusty.
Los Naufragos – Otra Vez En La Via – Columbia: Since this is an educational article, and access to it is open to the public for free, I shouldnt have to clear any samples I post here, but the funny thing about laws, is that they can be interpreted differently, especially when any kind of money is involved. If I wanted to put it out on an album that sells less than 8-10,000 units, I probably wouldnt NEED to clear it, but if the owner of the rights to the recordings would have legal right to sue me, so it would be a gamble. The whole reason behind this logic is the fact that selling under 10,000 of an album probably wont make you enough money to clear a sample. The actual burden falls on the label that publishes the music for sale, not the producer of the track. Again, I really try to stay away from bigger artists and labels owned by larger corporations, because they have ears all over the place. Even if you chop a sample into something different, all it takes is for someone to prove exactly where you got it from, and you can lose out. About the record at hand: this is from a pretty big label, but I have never heard of the artist. I live in the South Side of Texas so a majority of the pawn shops, used book stores and garage sales have mostly rare Latin music and then the popular records you find everywhere else. At first I thought it was a bad thing, but believe it or not there are some very small labels that started in Mexico and Southern Texas that has some good recordings. Not every Latin record is a mono mariachi band screaming a foreign language over accordions and maracas. Anyways, this record is on Columbia, so obviously this guy impressed someone down the line, so I chose it. It didnt have a cover, it was just sitting in the middle of the records naked, so if this is a good record I will donate an extra case to keep it protected, otherwise it will go right back into the mix like I found it. read the full article…
Ok, so you have bought you a motif, Triton, Fantom and FL and Reason. Now I guess you are asking how do I do all of this. How in the hell do I program drums, how do I play a piano. How do I make a melody, etc,etc. I took music a long time ago and played a clarinet, which I thought, was the gayest thing on the planet, but now at 23 I appreciate that I took he time to study music. It has not only help my music, but the since of timing that you learn and the creative juices that you get to just vibe out will cross over to all your work as you grow with music. read the full article…
During the 1960s, recording studios were growing fast due to the new 8-track recorders coming into the studios (thanks to Les Paul’s innovations from as early as the 1940s). Along with this, the art of mixing and creative engineering was born. Phil Spector started layering his instruments for an in-your-face trademark sound, that was actually dubbed “Wall of Sound.” The Beach Boys released Pet Sounds (engineered by Brian Wilson), which inspired the Beatles to record Sgt. Pepper. These are both great examples of creative engineering getting on its feet.
In 1982 the compact disc was released (the technology is actually much older). Until 1999 when Super Audio CD and DVD Audio (both complete failures still), CD was the highest quality the industry could supply us with. Vinyl can actually hold so much more sounds than a CD ever could, but since CDs are so much cheaper than vinyl, all of the companies started getting rid of their vinyl equipment. Most vinyl presses are run by smaller companies that have local or online clients. read the full article…
This is pretty common knowlege but for those who dont know, and havent built a record collection yet but plan to, you will need a place to keep your records organized. People use shelfs, the floor, and what not. But I prefer to use Milk crates. Why? They are sturdy, stackable, customizable, and portable… and *cough cough*.. free.
Im not sure how it is where ever all of you live. But there are only 2 types of crates I can get. Theres one type of crate which loks just right, but its about 2 cm too short for records to fit in there, then there is one thats very large, but fits the records in with a lot of space left. I get all my crates but the back of grocery/supermarkets and drug stores. And you can find them almost everywhere. They are mass produced. I have foudn ways to utilize all my crates, even if they too big or small, ill still use em. read the full article…
Many thanks to parabeats for scanning this! Download the entire pdf here, or just click on the images for bigger versions.
The Production Room was a small magazine about Hip-Hop Production that circulated in 1993, very rare!
read the full article…
Many thanks to parabeats for scanning this! A true gem. Download the entire pdf here, or just click on the images for bigger versions.
read the full article…
Well, I’ve heard a lot of questions about whether one compressor sounds different than other ones. I decided to find out for myself by comparing them. Basically, I took 5 compressors (Waves Bundle, Golden Compressor, Sonalksis SV-315, Sonitus, and TC Native DeX) and then a drum loop and sample and compared them.
I used the same settings on every compressor each time. Here are some of the screen shots of the compressors I used to work in Sonar 4 with the drum loops first. read the full article…
Sample Chopping in Cool Edit Pro 2.0 or Higher Part 1:
Chopping up Samples in Cep for use in Samplers.
(All Steps Are Executed in SINGLE WAvE FORM EDITING VIEW)
So you got a sweet sample you recorded in to CEP and now you want to Disect the sample so you can utilize it’s most sufficent parts, how are you going to achieve this? There is a methods I came upon that I found to be the fastest and easiest when it comes to chopping samples in CEP. This method will take a selection you’ve chosen. such as a Bass Drum, and save it to its own file as your choice of format for later use. The First Method is by far the easiest and fastest, plus it’s really easy to organize, in my opinion. read the full article…
For those of you who dont know, Cool Edit 2.0 or higher ( Now known as Adobe Audition ) can be set up into a Fast and Bangin Beat Machine!
The Concept is Simple. If you can set the Time Ruler to Display Bars and Beats, Have the ruler then corespond with the Session Tempo, and then have Samples Snap to the Ruler..you Got a breeding ground for Bangin Beats. read the full article…
